


To Calm the Doubts in My Belief

by Galena



Category: The Culture - Iain M. Banks, The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Crisis of Faith, Crossover, Deus Ex Machina, Exile, Gen, The Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye (IDW), there is no Prime Directive in the Culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 19:35:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6164179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galena/pseuds/Galena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post MTMTE-16</p>
<p>Drift's faith falters as he explores the depths of solitude, tangles with the DJD, and meets an Eccentric alien intelligence. Rated T for a touch of salty language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Calm the Doubts in My Belief

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Martin Iceworth (Iceworth)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iceworth/gifts).



> For the prompt "raining underwater".
> 
> Title & inspiration from the song "Homeward" by VNV Nation.

One morning Drift woke, went about checking the navicomputer, charting his position and plotting his progress, and realized that he hadn't spoken for two months.

He said "oh" quietly to himself and sat down. The word was hard and flat, almost vulgar. Not even a word, really, just a noise; a superfluous noise reflected back at him by the surface of the console display. The console made its own sounds but they had purpose: alerts, acknowledgements, the quiet hum/vibration of working fans and warm circuits.

Drift's voice had no purpose.

He stared at the console, trying to avoid letting his consciousness settle on that idea. _Drift had no purpose._ He found his own faint reflection in the surface of the navicomputer, obscured and interrupted by the information ticking steadily up the screen, heedless of his gaze. He saw himself in fragments behind the stream of data and made a spontaneous, ugly sound.

Drift distracted himself with assessing the fuel cells. He began researching the closest neutral port and lost himself in a thorough description of their trade culture, economy, political structure, social norms, complex symbiotic biology... Sometime later, he discovered he was hungry and rose, optics and mind resolutely fastened on the data pad in his hand, fighting to be interested. He turned his chair, drew one ration of energon from the dispenser and glanced up out of pure habit.

He had done this aboard the _Lost Light_ when his thoughts became too intrusive, turned aggressive; he would stand at a window with a ration of energon and contemplate space. He would stare into the vastness, the resounding silence, and feel blessed to exist. It had always worked to calm him.

But now, though there was a sharp jab of familiarity in the act and the vista, Drift found no solace. He remembered the large windows on the outer hull of the _Lost Light._ This tiny porthole with it's thick rim was a poor substitute and in that detail, everything came undone.

Rodimus' confident voice, Ultra Magnus' suspicious glower, the ship, his swords, their plans, his enthusiasm, red, orange, all the light and promise and faith-

He had the presence of mind to sink down, cross-legged on the tiny patch of floor available behind the pilot's chair, before the full weight of it overcame him. He placed his palms on his knees as though in meditation and shuttered his optics.

"I should have..." he murmured. His voice withered without conviction to sustain it.

He had not let himself be angry, or sad, or grief-stricken. He had carried on, looking forward, silent, as though the whole crew of the _Lost Light_ were scrutinizing him from a distance. They would see a bot with honour, with strength and loyalty and faith, one who accepted the consequences of his decisions, who took responsibility. Perhaps they would-

Drift shied away from the thought of forgiveness.

He did not need to be _forgiven_ , a vicious little corner of him argued. _Drift_ had nothing to atone for. Rodimus-

Drift's lips curled in a reflexive snarl. Suddenly he was furious. He clenched his hands into fists, pressing down on his own knees until the metal squeaked, jaws clamped hard together, cooling fans spinning up with a rising whine.

_I worked so hard to be different, to be better, and he-! No. No, do not be angry. You made the right decision. Rodimus must not be separated from the crew. Rodimus had to stay._

Drift shuddered, angry, frustrated, and miserable with longing. He forced himself to open his fists and sat up straight. He scratched at the rough spot on his chest where his emblem had been.

"No," he said the to the empty shuttle, "I did the right thing."

But there was no assurance in the silence and Drift's voice was flat and superfluous.

* * *

He decided that it would be healthy to wonder what the _Lost Light_ was doing. He let himself think about the crew. He cared about them, after all. They were why he had offered to take this burden that wasn't fully his to carry. Not only the _Lost Light_ , he argued to himself; he forced himself to think about as many people as possible, those back on Cybertron, those lost somewhere in the vastness outside the window. If he thought about everyone else, he wouldn't think of Rodimus.

When he stopped at a fuel depot, he spent several hours searching news feeds for any word of the crew's exploits. He was nearing the fringes of Cybertronian-controlled space and most of the news was non-specific and not especially current. Any reports he could find favoured Cybertron itself as a topic. Apparently there was to be an election. Drift tried every section of the feed. Maybe the _Lost Light_ 's misadventures had an effect on some planetary system's financial structure, or fashion industry. He found nothing.

He thought about the ones who had died. It was right to honour them with memory. He thought of those who had survived; of Chromedome, listless and atonal, of Ratchet who had only shown fear when Overlord seized Drift, and then it was fear for Drift's safety and not of Overlord's strength, and Drift's spark swelled with awe. He wondered if Ultra Magnus was dead. And who Rodimus would turn to with both of them gone...

Drift snapped his optics open, forcing focus on the starfield before him. He concentrated on the void. He preferred not to think of it as stretches of empty space, but as a black-coloured back-drop. Black was a safe colour; there was comfort in the empty-fullness of nighttime, places to hide, mystery and possibility in the distance.

But he didn't recognize any of the constellations and the distance between stars was increasing as he moved into the outer reaches of the galactic arm. It was becoming impossible to equate the emptiness around him with anything but himself. Even the subspace broadcasts were dwindling to a handful of voices riding only the strongest carriers, washed with light-years of static. Drift stared at the blackness between dim stars. It became horrifying; not the mystery of potential but a chasm of nothingness.

Eventually, the subspace broadcasts became susurrous nonsense. Driftcoasted aimlessly along the very edge of Cybertronian space, lost in the ebb and flow of the static. He watched the void and occasionally had flickers of motivation to devise a mission for himself. That was all they were at the moment though; just flickers.

He missed his swords. Overlord had wrenched them from him, ripped the Great Sword off his back, and he had not been given the chance to reclaim any of them. His weight felt wrong, diminished. He practised his stances and the quick, economic motions of hand-to-hand combat, teaching his kinetic relays how to respond without the weight and reach of a sword. No, he was _re_ -teaching them.

He almost bought a blaster at the next fuel depot he came across.

* * *

 

Drift could not bring himself to cross the imaginary border where Cybertronian space ended. He skimmed along the edge of that volume, peering across with the shuttle's sensors. Once he found a huge cruiser pacing him, Galactic Council markings obscured by distance. Once there was a mid-sized cargo vessel with far too many weapons that Drift could only assume must be a pirate ship but they only scanned him and navigated away.

“I have nothing left worth taking,” he said aloud, watching the purple glow of the pirate's engines fade into the endless black. A moment later, he considered what he had said and heard Rodimus' voice, unbidden but well-remembered, telling him not to tempt fate.

Drift would have told him that fate did not work like that. It did not descend upon the wretched when they bemoaned their situation to visit greater trials upon them. And Rodimus would counter that Drift was the most superstitious person he knew and how could he not think that wasn't asking for trouble? And Drift might have replied that faith was not superstition.

But out here, away from every reason Drift had to believe, he began to wonder.

After hours of consideration, Drift turned away from the border. He couldn't leave. This was far enough, surely. He plotted a new course, a little bit deeper into the galactic arm, back toward familiar civilization, and began to search for a port.

He bought fuel and supplies, and again hesitated over purchasing a gun. There was nothing in the news feeds about Cybertron, nothing about the _Lost Light_.

Drift tarried, watching two young locals awkwardly courting across the counter of a small food stand. The one on the patron's side of the counter halted its interaction and slid aside when an adult approached. The adult was dressed in something Drift guessed was formal attire. Both juveniles offered a gesture of respect. In turn, the adult made a complex sign with one paw and Drift realized the adult was a religious figure of some sort.

He turned away and departed.

The small interaction continued to intrude on his thoughts. Drift had tried to meditate for the first few days after his exile, but it led to endless ruminations, impossible to reconcile, and so he stopped. It had been a refuge for him once, like the black vastness of space; now it was hollow and echoed with recriminations.

He had not prayed either, not once. The words died on his tongue like all others and he found no need to revive them. His faith was part of him, even unspoken, was it not?

Drift pushed the thought away. He was exhausted and needed to recharge.

* * *

Hours later he woke because the cockpit was too bright. Squinting, one hand upraised to block the piercing light, Drift fumbled for the shuttle's controls. He polarized the windows to block the majority of the brilliance and found himself staring into the engines of a very large starship. There was a tow cable attached to the hull of the shuttle. They must have thought he was scrap.

Somewhat indignant, Drift pinged the other vessel for identification.

“We were wondering when you would wake up, Deadlock.”

A jolt of profound, spark-crushing terror stabbed through him like a physical force.

The ship towing his shuttle was the _Peaceful Tyranny._

The voice on the comm belonged to one of the Decepticon Justice Division.

Drift's first coherent emotion was confusion: why were they even out this far? _Could they be after him?_ But that didn't make sense. Drift couldn't be so high up on their List that they would commit so much fuel and effort to pursue him-

-assuming they had not simply been in the area and this was all a hideous coincidence. Drift's spark shuddered.

_I have nothing left worth taking_ _._

“Oh Rodimus, maybe you _are_ right,” he murmured to himself. “Maybe the Universe has a nasty sense of humour.” It felt false as soon as he said it but he could not take time to examine why.

He should respond, engage them in a requisite amount of conversation. He keyed the comm.

“I don't think I'm the bot you're looking for,” he said. “My name is Drift.”

One voice chuckled, while another scoffed. What were they doing? Crowding around the comm panel together? _Well, I suppose it is boring out here_ , Drift thought, somewhat hysterical. He studied the tow cable.

“Oh dear,” said a new voice, a wonderful, rich voice, and Drift actually put his knuckles between his dental plates and squeaked. “Kaon usually doesn't make mistakes like this but you know how _clumsy_ long-range sensors can be. I will need to verify your identity by inviting you aboard.”

“Don't trouble yourselves on my account,” Drift managed. The shuttle had no weapons. The thrusters were still functional though.

“It's no trouble at all,” said the voice. “We have nowhere to be except right _here_ _._ ”

Drift shivered. He had one option: fire up the thrusters, pull away, break the tow line, and _run_. Maybe they would fire on him and accidentally blow up the shuttle and him along with it. The alternative was being captured alive.

The shuttle had been moving along on autopilot, following Drift's programmed trajectory. The crew of the _Peaceful Tyranny_ had pulled the shuttle off course when they snagged it with the tow line, but they could not shut down the thrusters remotely. Drift did not need to prime them now, only increase the output.

The tow line went taut as the shuttle's thrusters surged. For a moment, Drift thought it wasn't going to break, and then, with a tiny scrape audible through the hull, the anchor popped off. Over the open comm, the DJD bayed with glee as Drift rolled and looped to avoid a patter of plasma shots.

“And you said he'd be boring!” one of them yelled.

Drift muted the comm and focused all his will on escape. He had to put distance between the shuttle and the _Peaceful Tyranny_ to avoid the tow lines and grapples, but that meant entering its firing zone. He was counting on the fact that the DJD preferred to capture their targets alive to keep them from using larger ordnance, and he was hoping that they had not bothered to analyze the little shuttle's engines too closely.

For fifteen minutes, Drift spun and dove and zig-zagged and doubled back to buy himself distance. A grappling cable snagged the shuttle; Drift dragged it across the bigger starship's thrusters and melted the line. A plasma bolt struck the interstellar comm and the radio went dark. Waves of radiation, an artificially generated solar wind, played havoc with his instruments. The shuttle wobbled crazily. Plasma raked the polarized viewscreens. Something burst into flames under the control panel and Drift ignored it.

The windows unpolarized in random fragments, splotched like shadows on the surface of idle water and for a moment Drift felt as though he were drowning. Drowning in a life of ill luck and good intentions, and now the DJD were adding a rain of blaster shots, as if he needed the extra impediment!

Drift snarled.

Alarms sounded and red lights flickered briefly to life before another silent wash of radiation scrambled everything and the shuttle went into a quiet, dead tumble. The viewscreen blacked out completely. Drift couldn't see, couldn't navigate- he could hear though: the ominous creak of the shuttle's integrity failing around him, the raging hiss of burning metal, and the whistle of escaping gas.

Then the whole structure shuddered to a halt. With the shuttle only partially pressurized now, Drift's hearing was muffled but he _felt_ something anomalous and massive beyond the broken shell of his little ship. His personal electro-magnetic field sizzled with awareness. Something huge closed around the shuttle.

Drift had no weapons. His swords were lost; he never had purchased a gun. In despair, he balled his hands into fists and stood up, determined to face at least the beginning of his end with some dignity and courage. Through the breaches in the shuttle came a trickle of atmosphere and with it, a dull thrum of distant sound. Monstrous engines, pushing the _Peaceful Tyranny_ through space, vibrating against the soles of his feet.

“Let's get this over with,” he growled and flung open the hatch, teeth bared in stubborn denial.

The interior of the ship was brightly lit and vast on a scale that Drift struggled to comprehend immediately. He understood that the _Peaceful Tyranny_ would have to be a big ship, scaled for the comfort of the DJD's largest members, as well as for carrying their arsenal. Drift gathered his wits, gaze darting around the landing space, and resolved to ignore the staggering enormity of his captor's vessel in favour of seeking an escape route.

“Hello.”

Drift's combat protocols, already primed, flashed into active mode. In his quick catalogue of the surroundings, he had dismissed the floating mechanical object at the bottom of the ramp as some type of monitoring equipment. It did not appear to be a weapon; therefore it was irrelevant.

“Hello,” said the tiny floating machine again. It was matte black and rectangular, featureless, with a thin haze of colour tinting the air around its surface.

Drift stared, uncertain. Was this a trick? Some kind of trap? He swept his sensors over the machine; it was impenetrable to his examination. Drift narrowed his optics.

“Excuse you,” said the mechanical. “Kindly keep your scans to yourself until we're properly introduced.”

“Wh- what?” Drift recovered himself, bared his teeth and raised his fists. “Come and face me yourselves! Instead of hiding behind a- a remote communication device!”

The surface of the mechanical object briefly shimmered with colour like an oil slick. “Calm down. You're not aboard the _Peaceful Tyranny._ We rescued you.”

Drift didn't relax. “As if!”

The mechanical device floated upward, approaching Drift's eye level. It was tiny, no more than half the size of Rewind's alt mode, but it seemed autonomous and Drift couldn't see any outward method of propulsion, which made it suspicious. He took a step back.

“I understand your caution,” it said. “Scan the area. I'll wait.” It settled slightly and the thin aura of colour that shrouded it turned a neutral sort of blue. Hesitantly, Drift did as he was told.

Nothing he found made any sense.

Nothing in the vast space around him was Cybertronian. Some of the technology seemed familiar but most of it was entirely unique, wholly alien. Most of it was as impenetrable to Drift's sensors as the floating object.

“What are you?” Drift asked finally. “Where am I?” He did not deactivate his combat protocols.

The object rose slightly and the shimmering aura flared with yellow and green.

“I am the drone Eksrith-Ceronvar and you are aboard the _Unintended Consequences of Curiosity_.” It paused for a moment. “I asked the _Unintended_ to make me an avatar based on your species but it said that, given your circumstances, that might be cruel. You being exiled, then hunted by them, and all that.”

“How... do you know about my 'circumstances'?” Drift asked.

“They've been studying you,” said the drone brightly. “The _Unintended_ and it's research partner initially discovered your species. They've been monitoring your kind for hundreds of years.”

“Studying me?” said Drift. “Us?”

“Cybertronians, Cybertron, yes. Do you know how _rare_ a naturally-occurring mechanical species is in this galaxy? In _any_ galaxy? Apparently it's rare.”

“I- we're not _naturally_ -” Drift stopped. He glanced around again, still bristling with caution. “Are we safe here? Can your ship hold them off?”

“Who? Oh, the _Peaceful Tyranny_?” said the drone. It's name was a mouthful and Drift didn't care enough to remember it. A pinkish aura rippled around it. “Oh yes. The _Unintended_ disabled their weapons.”

“You would be doing my people a favour if you did more than disable their weapons.”

“Be that as it may,” said the drone primly, “rescuing you will be the full extent of our interference. We do not exhort capital punishment and any overt aggression could be construed as an act of war. Which your kind are rather prone to engaging.”

“What experiment? You mentioned the _Lost Light_. What are you doing to my crewmates?” He took a step forward.

The drone floated vaguely backward. “Nothing. That's the point. They're just observing you.”

“What about the _Lost Light_?” he repeated stubbornly.

“Well, the _Lost Light_ is the _Unintended_ 's research partner. It's not a Cybertronian ship. The _Lost Light_ is a Culture Mind in disguise.”

“I don't...” said Drift.

“Let's wipe that dumb look off your face. Come have a tour!”

Drift took a hesitant step down the ramp.

A door opened in the wall approximately fifty metres away, where there had been no door. It was nowhere near large enough for Drift but it was just the right size for the organic humanoid that strode into the docking bay.

“Eks! _What have you done?!_ ”

The drone turned on it's axis, apparently unhurried. “Oh. This is Dr. Bell. She works with the _Unitended_ and the _Lost Light_. She didn't want you to get rescued.”

The organic stopped and stared up at Drift. She was humanoid enough that Drift guessed the expression on her face was combined fury and distress.

“I told you- _I told you! We cannot interfere!_ Eks, you fucking idiot!”

Drift winced. The drone's aura rippled darker and it swooped down to the organic's height.

“You were worried about him too! And the _Unintended_ -”

“I swear I am going to sell you to the first reclamation team we come across. Get out of here before you do any more damage! And call the _Lost Light_. I'm not going to be the one to break the news and get verbally flayed by an angry Mind!”

“We can still-”

“ _Get out!_ ”

Drift watched the exchange in silence. When the drone had left through the same invisible door, the organic looked up at him again.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “You're not supposed to be here.”

Drift froze. “If I leave now, the DJD will-”

“Oh! No, I'm not going to kick you out. No.”

“You were going to let the DJD catch me,” said Drift, frowning.

She sighed. “I know how that must seem to you. But any interference with subjects by the researcher skews the resulting observations. If we helped you escape, we would be changing your natural behaviour. And theirs.”

“Do you know what they do? They torture people to death.”

Dr. Bell folded one pair of arms over her chest. “I know.”

“And would that _observation_ be worth my life?”

“Absolutely not. I had no wish to see you murdered. My intent was to give your ship a _nudge_ into a higher level of the energy grid, which would make you effectively disappear from your pursuer's sensors and allow you to escape.” She hesitated. “It's still meddling but it's the sort of random space weirdness that your people encounter rather frequently and are happy to write off as serendipity or acts of god.”

Drift narrowed his optics. “You're going to alter my memory and then put me back out there.” Drift balled his hands into fists.

“No! Goodness, you're so suspicious. We're not _Special Circumstances_! We wouldn't just muck around in your head because _we_ screwed up. We'll just...” She made a shrugging gesture with one pair of arms. “...get to know you I guess? Unless you'd like to leave. Would you like to leave?”

“Not if the DJD is still around.”

“Yes. They're following us.”

“Then I'll stay until they aren't.”

“Fair enough.” She tilted her head in way reminiscent of someone communicating via radio frequency. “Let's start over, shall we? I am Dr. Bell, xenobiologist, specializing in metallosentient species. And you are...?”

“My name is Drift,” said Drift. “I'm... kind of between self-defined labels right now.”

“Well that's fine, everyone gets to that point in their lives, don't they? It's nice to meet you, Drift. Let's get you acquainted with the _Unintended_ and then you can decide where you'd like to stay.”

* * *

The _Unintended Consequences of Curiosity_ was mostly empty.

“It's a General Contact Unit,” Dr. Bell reeled off, “Not that big, in the grand scheme of things. One hundred ten kilometres long, mostly sensing and data processing equipment.” She was piloting a small single-seat hovercraft slightly below Drift's left shoulder. “Engines, weapons, a few decks given over to hospitality for myself and that foolish miscreant Eks.”

She directed him around another featureless corner. “Now, the ship you know as the _Lost Light_ is a hybrid. The physical shell is Cybertronian; the Mind chose to occupy it and take on the ship as it's appearance.” She glanced up at him to gauge his reaction. “It's rare and, as I understand it, a bit scandalous for a Culture Mind to choose an alien craft as it's home but the _Lost Light_ has been Eccentric for centuries.”

Drift was half-listening. His EM field prickled with the feeling of being observed. The ship itself- the _Unintended_ \- was watching him. It didn't scan, it didn't prod, it said nothing. It just watched.

“Originally, the Mind of the _Lost Light_ occupied a Rapid Offensive Unit, one of only a handful built by the _Unintended_ itself. But it had nominal interest in military pursuits. Eccentric from the start, just like it's parent Mind, or so the unenlightened would tell you. It wasn't interested in _our_ military pursuits but it certainly is interested in those of your kind, that's for sure.”

They rounded another corner and Drift faltered for a moment. The platform they were standing on seemed to extend out into unprotected space. Doctor Bell continued on, unperturbed by the apparent vacuum. Drift followed, wary.

“The Cybertronian empire is millions of years older than the Culture we come from, yet your people have been at war for most of their history. That was what interested the _Lost Light_ and the _Unintended_. You can come out here,” she said. “The ship's fields extend beyond it's physical structure for a good ten kilometres. Look there. Ah! And see, the _Peaceful Tyranny_ is still following us. Quite tenacious, aren't they.”

Drift looked. The DJD ship trailed them by a cautious margin. He shifted his vision through various spectra and found he could see the faint outline of the _Unintended_ 's fields, pearlescent bubbles that enveloped space around the ship.

“They're going to-”

The _Peaceful Tyranny_ collided with the _Unintended'_ s rear-most field.

“Oops,” said Dr. Bell.

A wave of something that Drift received as a mix of sound and temperature rolled through his sensors. _“Tell me that was a cultural misunderstanding, not an unsolicited advance._ ” Drift didn't need Dr. Bell to tell him that he was hearing the ship's own voice.

“I doubt very much that they would choose such a crude form of provocation,” said Dr. Bell.

“I think that was an accident,” said Drift. “But, all the same, if you want to blast them out of the sky, please go ahead.”

This time when the _Unintended_ spoke, Drift received it as a vibration conducted through his armour. _“What is the appropriate response in your culture when someone makes unwanted contact with your body?_ ”

“I'd punch them,” said Drift hopefully.

“ _You're a very violent species.”_

Something went speeding toward the _Peaceful Tyranny_ , giving off thin green contrails. The DJD vessel banked away, slowed, and took up following again at a more considerate distance.

Drift contemplated the vista. “We are,” he said. “Profoundly, embarrassingly violent.” He thought of Ultra Magnus and Fortress Maximus suddenly. “And we meet violence with violence automatically.” He thought of Wing, briefly, before he banished the memory and forced his focus onto the DJD, carefully sneaking closer. “How do you respond to unwanted contact?”

“With a stern warning,” said Dr. Bell. “And if this fails, a method of neutralizing the perpetrator without causing permanent damage.”

“I don't think your warning was stern enough,” said Drift. The _Peaceful Tyranny_ was creeping ever more near to the _Unintended_ 's rear fields again.

Drift felt something shift in the atmosphere within the ship and suddenly the fields appeared to be solid, grey protrusions, graceful scalloping along the aft of the _Unintended_. This time, the DJD veered off and stayed back.

“They couldn't see the fields, or they didn't recognize them as part of the _Unintended_ ,” said Dr. Bell. “Another Culture Mind would have known but we cannot expect your kind to see or understand what they have never encountered before.”

“We have shield- or field- technology,” said Drift. “We just don't use it on our ships the way you're doing.”

Dr. Bell glanced at him. “That was not an insult, Drift. Merely an observation.”

Drift vented a small sigh. “I apologize if I seemed rude. I have had a difficult... day.”

“There is no need to apologize.” She turned away. “As I was saying, we have been studying your species for some time. We know some of what you have endured.” She turned the little hovercraft away from the open vista. “The _Lost Light_ knows more, I expect.”

Drift was silent for a moment, following her into the empty depths of the alien ship.

“Are you in contact with it?” he asked. “The _Lost Light_?”

“Not at present. It checks in every week or so to upload new data to the _Unintended_ 's main storage.” She shook her head. “It's going to be livid with Eks when it finds out about you.”

“Every week?” said Drift. “Can you tell me- did it tell you- are they okay?”

Dr. Bell stopped the hovercraft and spiralled up to Drift's eye line again. “The observations-”

“Please,” he said softly, “please, they're my friends.”

She folded both sets of arms across her torso and couldn't meet his gaze. “Ask Eks. It'll tell you.”

* * *

 

Drift sat beside a transparent section of the _Unintended_ 's hull and watched the _Peaceful Tyranny_. The _Unintended_ had made the section transparent for Drift, without his asking or its enquiring. Whatever else the 'Mind' was that controlled the ship- _was_ the ship- it was an intuitive intelligence. Other than making the window for him, it attempted no interaction.

But Drift was hyper aware that he was not alone. The ship might not be talking or scanning him anymore, but it was there and it was certainly listening.

“Oof, if I had ears, they would be burning! Lucky for you the _Lost Light_ is so hands-off with it's passengers. Damn that ship likes to yell.”

Drift looked down to find Eks hovering rapidly across the floor toward him.

“Lucky?” He tightened his armour and glanced out the window again.

“Yeah. The words it had for me were- okay, they were pretty harsh- but the words it has for your captain?” The drone's aura rippled a myriad shades of pink. “It tries to be impartial but your Rodimus and his decisions try its patience.”

“Is Rodimus okay?” Drift blurted. “You talked to the _Lost Light_?”

“He's alive.”

“Alive but...?”

“But nothing. He's apparently fine, according to the Cybertronian standard of 'fine', which means he's not in mortal peril right immediately now.”

“Is Ultra Magnus-?”

The drone shimmered a mix of colours. “I'm not supposed to tell you anything.”

“You told me Rodimus is alive! Can't you at least tell me that much?”

“What good is knowing or not knowing going to do you?” Eks countered. “Your knowing doesn't change what _is_.”

And just like that Drift was reminded that he was superfluous- to the crew of the _Lost Light_ , to the laws of physics, even to the observational study of these aliens. Drift was nothing more than a confounding variable to them. His knowing whether the crew was safe or not meant something only to him and what could Drift do with that information but feel relief (and then sadness) or sadness (and then guilt)?

“Of course,” he said. “And nothing I can do will change what _is._ ” He clenched one hand into a fist.

“I get it,” Eks continued. “Your species is social. You're concerned for your companions and you feel responsible for their safety, even when there's nothing you can do, right?”

Drift focused on relaxing his fist. “Would you not feel the same?”

“Let me think,” said the drone, and floated in circles. Drift got the impression it didn't need time to think and was doing this for show. “Nothing. I would do nothing. I have friends in our galaxy- not this one, the galaxy we're from. I don't know their state of being and I can't contact them. I'm not currently important to any aspect of their lives and they aren't important to mine. So I would do nothing.”

“But don't you miss them?”

Eks bobbed in place. “No. Let me ask you: what is the biggest difference between you and I? We're very similar in many ways: we're both mechanical, we have emotional capacity, autonomy, legal citizenship. How do you see us being most _dissimilar_?”

Drift hesitated. “It's the social thing, isn't it. You're _not_.”

“Well, I'd say that's a symptom of the major difference between us, rather than the defining difference. It's the _species_ thing.” Eks' aura flared. “I was built as _one_. You were _born_ among _many_.”

“Yes,” said Drift, “from the spark of Primus.”

Eks' aura flickered. “Orrrr... from a chance union of matter and energy, but call it what you will.”

Drift turned aside. “Great. Another atheist.” The words felt hollow and that was alarming.

“Can I be anything but an atheist? As a non-Cybertronian mechanical intelligence, one who is privy to your natural history and behavioural ecology? I am as outside your belief system as you are outside mine.”

Drift turned back. “You may not be the progeny of Primus but certainly you can accept that _I_ am.”

“Naw. I know how your kind came to be,” Eks replied. “Perhaps there was a Cybertronian named Primus once and perhaps he was great, but he wasn't the origin of all sparks.”

“What does that have to do with missing my friends?” Right now, Drift missed Ratchet and how the words were never hollow when they argued; they were full of passion. All of the medic's quipping and needling strengthened his faith, improved his own understanding of Primus. Suddenly Drift wanted nothing more than Ratchet's rough words and careful hands.

Eks did another thoughtful circle in the air. “Everything, really. I was created as one, alone, an individual. But you- it wasn't Primus, but there _was something_ , a single origin for every spark, so far as Dr. Bell can determine. Something massive that came apart into these enduring fragments of energy and now you're all individuals but you're part of a whole as well, in a way that I can't be.”

“Till all are one,” Drift murmured.

“Your captain's catchphrase,” Eks observed.

“It's not just a catchphrase. Rodimus says it a lot but even you must be able to see that it's profound.”

“Even me?” The drone's aura muddied. “You know, Dr. Bell thinks your kind was part of something even larger than- well, let's call it Primus for argument's sake. That Primus was one of many and that _they_ were the species, something eusocial, with different forms performing different functions.”

Drift felt himself beginning to snarl.

“Primus made you because that was it's function and then Primus died. Dr. Bell thinks that's why you lot can't reproduce individually; you're a sterile drudge and the only lasting relic of a species long extinct.”

_“Eksrith-Ceronvar. Please see Doctor Bell in laboratory ten.”_

The drone's aura flickered lurid orange, then white, they grey at the ship's voice. It did not respond and it didn't bid Drift farewell when it scurried away.

“I'm perfectly capable of standing up for my own beliefs,” Drift muttered into the silence when Eks had gone.

_“I have no desire to watch Eks bully you. It should do better.”_ The ship's voice vibrated through his armour again, humming close to his spark frequency. He was sure that he could hear it with his aural sensors as well but that paled in comparison to the pervasive harmony of words and meaning and Drift's entire self.

The feeling was as close to rapture as Drift had ever known. He knew the ship was an alien intelligence, a computer with speed and complexity to match the greatest minds on Cybertron- and hadn't Dr. Bell mentioned that the _Unintended_ once built other ships, other beings like itself?

Drift stared through the window that the alien ship had made for him and into the depths of space. It took his breath away- every tiny star with it's million year history and it's possible planetary system and the distance between, full of the unseen, abeyant and lush- and Drift knelt.

If Primus was one of many and Drift a wayward spark, then too wasn't the _Unintended_ also a god and the _Lost Light_ another wandering child?

“I do not know what to do,” he whispered and found his hands coming together as though in prayer. “I let Rodimus exile me because he _must_ stay with the _Lost Light_. He was- he was responsible for Overlord but I couldn't let him accept the fault because he would be removed from the ship in punishment. Rodimus _must stay_. I know that he must. It was the right choice for the crew.” Drift shuttered his optics and gritted his teeth. “It was the right choice. I saw it; I know it.”

The ship did not reply but Drift knew it was still listening, knew it heard his voice, and his spark throbbed with sudden joy. The emptiness, the quiet that had seeped into his mind began to recede. He had not meditated or properly prayed in months; all his reproach for Rodimus, his doubts in himself, and the loneliness that had crowded into his spark were shaken loose by the voice of the alien ship and the window it gave him.

_I may have nothing left worth taking, Rodimus, but I have so very much offered to me._

Drift arranged himself properly, bowed his head and relaxed. “Great Primus,” he began, “first and most noble among us, giver of life, your power uplifting. By your grace we wake and walk; by your light we strive: to disperse, to prevail, to improve. Our struggles are your will given form and we shall continue. Until all are one.” He felt the ship's wordless interest and clutched his hands together more tightly. His optics burned beneath their shutters. “Great Primus, first and most noble among us, giver of life, your power uplifting; by your grace we wake and walk, by your light we strive...”

The ship's hum pervaded his armour and Drift's voice lifted in harmony.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't remember if a GCU ever built ROUs in the books but I'll stand by the 'just cause we didn't see it doesn't mean it can't happen' argument. 
> 
> (Ps. it is a truth universally acknowledged that a Culture woman in possession of adventurous inclinations must be in want of a sarcastic drone.)


End file.
